Posts from January 2008

January 31, 2008

The prosecution in a massive drug case is calling for a sentence of at least six years imprisonment for ice hockey playerJere Karalahti, who went on trial on Tuesday accused of aggravated drug crime, as well complicity in aggravated drug crime. Karalahti denied the charges that were read out in a session of Espoo District Court, which was held at a prison in Vantaa for security reasons. Karalahti is one of 21 defendants believed to have connections with the Bandidos motorcycle gang. Prosecutors say that Karalahti's role in the series of crimes involved financing purchases of large quantities illegal drugs; he allegedly supplied the main defendants with EUR 20,000 to buy about four kilos of amphetamine from Estonia.

The prosecution claims that Karalahti gave EUR 15,000 in cash to the two main perpetrators, who delivered the money to Estonia to pay for a quantity of amphetamine. The information on the sums of money involved is partly based on electronic surveillance. The prosecution says that Karalahti borrowed EUR 10,000 from a former teammate, Olli Jokinen of the Florida Panthers NHL team. Karalahti told Jokinen that he needed the money to disengage from a player contract with the Helsinki team HIFK. Jokinen himself is not suspected of any crime. Karalahti is also suspected of having used the same excuse to persuade one of the other defendants to lend EUR 5,000 to one of the suspected main perpetrators.

Karalahti denies involvement in the financing or acquisition of drugs in any way.

Riga - Following three years of a booming real estate property market, the Baltic states might be seeing the end of it. Residential real estate prices in three Baltic capitals have been dropping gradually since last year as consumers have grown pessimistic about the economic future.

In Tallinn, for example, the price for popular two- and three- bedroom apartments has dropped 10 to 15 per cent, while prices on apartments in Riga last year fell by 10 per cent, Violeta Klyviene, a Danske Bank economic analyst for the Baltics, said.

Real estate prices have been too high for the income level of the Baltic states, she told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. This was even more pronounced in Latvia, one of the poorest countries in the European Union, where apartment prices have reached and even exceeded the price level of a similar real estate in Berlin or Paris.

In the third quarter of 2007, the number of real estate transactions in Estonia dropped 24 per cent, compared to the same period in 2006, Aare Tammemae, chairman of the management board of Estonia's real estate company Arco Vara, told dpa.

TALLINN - Preliminary information indicates that the explosive device which wounded four teenagers in the Estonian city of Tartu on Jan. 29 was of military origin.

The blast occurred after the explosive device had been placed in a fire, a spokesman for the south prosecutor's office, Marko Uibu, said. "An investigation has to establish exactly what type of explosive device was involved," he added.

Uibu said the security police has launched an inquiry, basing the criminal proceeding on the Penal Code article dealing with causing an explosion by using an explosive device or explosive substance. Conviction carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

The explosion in which four 15-year-old students of Tartu's Russian gymnasium were wounded occurred around 6 p.m.

The Tartu University hospital to which the injured teenagers were taken said two are in a serious condition and one in a critical condition. The fourth casualty was discharged after being given treatment.

In Estonia, both the business community and politicians are facing a rigorous debate on the draft of the new employment contract law released recently by the Ministry of Social Affairs.

The draft has been under development for quite some time, but the published version was worked out within the ministry without much public discussion. The draft has already received praise from business leaders for bringing Estonia’s labor market closer to European principles and way of thinking.

TALLINN - Estonia might try to persuade the European Union to impose import duties on Russian electricity to protect the Baltic energy market if and when the EU and Russian grids are interconnected, according to a report.

Einari Kisel, the head of the Economy Ministry’s energy department, told the Postimees that levying an import duty will be a matter of life and death for Estonia’s energy sector. He said cheap Russian electricity could satisfy all of Estonia’s energy demands.

TALLINN - Good news has come for high-flying business executives regularly crossing the Gulf of Finland : Copterline, the Finnish-owned helicopter transit firm that once provided a fast air link between Tallinn and Helsinki, has announced that it will soon resume the service.

Copterline Estonia’s Execu-tive Director Tonis Lepp told Reporter.ee that regular flights between Tallinn and Helsinki will start in less than two months.

TALLINN - Just a few years ago it seemed like international Baltic rail links were falling apart. The line between Tallinn and Riga, never that good or efficient to begin with, was shut down altogether in 2001.

Meanwhile the then cash-strapped Estonian government sold off the publicly-owned railway company in a fire sale.

Now there has been a sea change for the industry. Railway companies are flush with cash and this means more choice for passengers.

January 30, 2008

TALLINN - Estonian police are warning people to be on the lookout for forged 500 kroon (32 euro) banknotes after several have been discovered in Kuressaare and western parts of the mainland.

According to the West Police Prefecture an attempt was made recently to pay with a forged banknote at a kiosk in Pärnu, but the saleswoman noticed the forgery before the transaction was made.

Soon afterwards a fake 500 kroon banknote was found in the Lihula office of Ühispank. The police have taken criminal action in both the cases.

"Experts must establish whether the Pärnu and Lihula cases are connected with the forged banknotes found in Kuressaare," Külli Kivioja, spokeswoman for the West regional prosecutor's office, told BNS. Police confirmed that they have a main suspect.

The first reports of counterfeit notes emerged on January 13. They are not particularly sophisticated, having apparently been made using a scanner and printer.

TALLINN - The Northern prefecture of the Estonian police force has completed proceedings in all cases opened against participants in the April 2007 rioting by the middle of January, it has confirmed. The Eastern prefecture had finished its investigations already, meaning that a line may now be drawn under the notorious affair.

The North prefecture launched 33 criminal cases on the basis of Penal Code articles dealing with committing an offense during mass disorder, grave breach of public order, violence against a representative of state power and theft.

During the street violence at the end of April 2007, a total of 426 persons were detained as suspects in Tallinn and the adjoining Harjumaa region. By mid-January, the cases against 266 persons had been closed without bringing charges and 156 cases had been forwarded to the regional prosecutor's office for a decision.

By living in several different countries, I've seen different cultures, and one of the things I have noticed is that guaranteed and assumed *privacy* is completely culture-dependent. Moreover, privacy is also a very important part of human rights.

First, I was born in Estonia when it was occupied by Soviet Union. The SU had it's own rules, personal freedom was very limited. You were not only supposed to be loyal to the government, but you were also supposed not to be different from others. Every difference was actively punished. On the other hand, *Estonia* was somewhat more liberal compared to the other parts of the US, and Estonians tend to need and respect privacy of other people. So while any anomaly could have been reported, there was no neighbourhood watch, and you were able to do whatever you wanted given that it was only among people you could trust. Nevertheless, from this period onwards, Estonians do not trust foreigners, or just strangers.

Then Estonia became independent. Everything changed. In particular, there was a sudden sense of freedom, and also in the cultural sense, the first years were just a chaos. People were drunk of freedom, but then moved too quickly to the other extreme. In my opinion, nobody at this moment cared very much about privacy --- since there was freedom.

Estonia now is different. There is still freedom, but old cultural habits of the Soviet time restrict it a lot without people even noticing it. There are also problems with privacy --- in Estonia I would not be *very* surprised to get to know that somebody listens to my phone calls. As said, privacy is a part of the human rights. It actually seems that both human rights and privacy have gone downhill recently ; the "bronze soldier" affair has influenced Estonia as much as 9/11 did influence the US.

Finland and Estonia signed an agreement on Monday aimed at closer cooperation between law enforcement authorities of the countries. The agreement allows for the establishment of common crime investigation groups. "Previously we would submit a request for assistance, which would be translated into Estonian and sent forward. Then we would get an answer. Now we are working as a single group with our Estonian colleagues", says National Police Commissioner Markku Salminen. The new system is specifically aimed at fighting organised crime.

The need for closer cooperation stems from Estonia's membership in the Schengen treaty, which has eliminated border formalities for travel between Estonia and other signatories for travellers arriving by ship and overland. The change will apply to airports from the end of March. In 2006 nearly 1,500 wanted criminals were caught at the border - mostly petty criminals. Salminen notes that the police want to focus on serious cases in connection with border surveillance.

HELSINKI — Former NHL player Jere Karalahti was charged Tuesday with being involved in smuggling amphetamines into Finland.

The 32-year-old Karalahti was charged with being involved in smuggling nine pounds of amphetamines into the country. In a case that includes 19 people, he also allegedly provided $29,500 for smuggling operations, prosecutors said. He has denied the charges.

If found guilty, Karalahti could face up to six years in prison.

The drug ring is suspected of smuggling amphetamines and cocaine from Estoniato Finland last year.

On Nov. 6, Karalahti was taken off the ice for police questioning during his Karpat team's practice. Three days later, he was arrested on suspicion of committing a serious drug offense.

MOSCOW — Like many Russians, Mariana B. Skvortsova planned to spend her winter vacation traveling abroad. Yet, as she tried to cross from Russia into Finland this month, border guards refused her entry.

Ms. Skvortsova, a leader in the Kremlin-backed youth group, Nashi, was among hundreds of young people who unleashed furious protests after the former Soviet republic of Estonia moved a monument to World War II-era Soviet soldiers from the center of Tallinn, its capital, to the city’s outskirts last April.

Now, tiny Estonia has quietly struck back. It has caused a bit of an uproar here by putting the Nashi protesters on an immigration blacklist, preventing them from traveling not only to Estonia but also, because of its recent entry into the European Union border-free zone, to most of Europe as well.

A spokeswoman for the Estonian Embassy in Moscow confirmed the ban, but was not authorized to say how many people it applied to or for how long.

January 27, 2008

It would be nice to think that the harassment of the British Council by the Russian authorities would prompt a united, imaginative European response. Perhaps in a parallel universe it is. Imagine Germany's Goethe Institute, the Spanish Instituto Cervantes, the Institut Français and other Western cultural-diplomacy offices announcing joint efforts to promote the English language and British culture and hire all the staff of the British Council offices.

That would force the Kremlin to decide whether it really wanted a full-scale confrontation with its most important neighbours. Such a stance would prove beyond doubt the need for a serious rethink. If Russia backed down, the row would end.

In this universe, though, the response has been feeble, and not for the first time. When European countries have tiffs with the Kremlin, they tend to find themselves standing alone, not shoulder to shoulder with their allies.

In Britain's case, that is partly the fault of the prime minister, Gordon Brown, whose ......

January 26, 2008

TALLINN - Baltic ship and ferry operator, Tallink (TAL1T.TL : Quote, Profile, Research) reported a first quarter net profit of 2.6 million Estonian kroons ($243,500) on Friday, a fall of 97 percent from 114.6 million in the same period a year ago.

The company, whose first quarter covers Sept. 1 to Nov. 30 of the 2007/2008 financial year, said the profit collapse was due to the launch of a new booking system in October, which had taken time for both clients and staff to get used to.

Net sales for the period fell 1.9 percent to 2.920 billion kroons in its first quarter.

"During the transition period of the systems, the bookings and sales activities were not running at their highest capacity as the use of resources was disturbed by technical issues," the group said.

It said the negative impact of the new booking system on its results "is not over yet", but expected positive development over the next nine months to meet its targets.

This view was based on the current development in its operations, expected new vessels and changes in routes and signs of easing fuel prices and interest rates.

TALLINN - An Estonian court has fined a man in the only conviction linked to cyber attacks on official Web sites during last year's riots over the relocation of a Soviet-era war memorial, it said on Thursday.

The court of Harju district, which serves the area including the capital Tallinn, said it had fined the 20-year-old 17,500 kroons ($1,635) for organizing the disruption of the server for the website of the ruling-coalition-leading Reform Party.

"There was only one suspect and he received the court's verdict yesterday, but investigations are continuing (into other hacking offences)," said Gerrit Maesalu, spokesman of the Northern District's prosecutors' office.

The cyber attacks coincided with two nights of riots and looting by mainly ethnic Russian Estonians following the removal of the Soviet war memorial from the centre of Tallinn to a military cemetery.

The move angered many Russian speakers, who saw the monument as a symbol of sacrifices made during World War Two.

The disruption of the Reform Party site was one of many during the disturbances, some of which the Baltic state said originated on servers linked to Russian authorities.

Russia has denied any involvement in the attacks, which comprised repeated high volume requests to Web sites, forcing them to crash or be paralyzed.

Estonia is trying four men for organizing the riots. One man was stabbed to death in the unrest.

January 24, 2008

According to sources from the Thai Police they have been attacked by punters from a bar on Walking Street in Pattaya and when they did not want to go in the Thai men got angry. That escalated to a small brawl and the Estonian men went to the Thai Tourist Police and they did nothing off course.

The trio then went back to face the Thai men and they called for friends and 15 brave Thai men beat up the guys from Estonia with bottles and iron pipes.

The Thai Police had a “serious” crackdown on vendors that are selling pirated goods and show animals for money last week. How about doing a crack down on all Thai “pushers” that works for bars and Go Go places. The Thai Police are so strict with western work permits but how about as crack down on Thai tax and work permits. What are all this low life’s doing in Pattaya anyway ?

Sadly like most time in Thailand it takes a death or something else to stop the bad circle and with tonight’s tragic events I guess something is going to be done for a couple of weeks.

TALLINN - The moustache has had a long and conflicted history. It has dipped in and out of public favor, resting on the upper lip of kings and tyrants alike. From Stalin and Hitler to Burt Reynolds and Salvador Dali, a moustache has always made a bold public statement and has, for better or worse, made an impact on society. Now it is helping to prevent cancer.

Next month has been dubbed “Februhairy” in Estonia, thanks to a project organized by Mark White, a DJ at Energy FM 93.2 in Tallinn. During Februhairy men are encouraged to grow a moustache for the month and participate in a wide array of events aimed at awareness and prevention of testicular cancer.

“This is meant to be fun, to promote awareness in an exciting way and at the same time be educating guys about preventing the cancer,” said White, “There are simple ways to avoid getting it, and then rather than have to worry about curing it men can focus on prevention which is actually cheaper.” Contests, prizes and concerts will supplement this first annual Februhairy and all collected funds will be donated towards the purchase of a new machine – valued at 500,000 kroons – for detecting testicular cancer.

Februhairy will actually kick off on the last day of January, when participating men are expected to shave their faces clean of any existing facial hair or stubble. They are then asked to take a picture of themselves and to send it into the Energy Radio Web site, where it will be posted alongside those of other participants.